I’ve been lax about writing here, either to say thank you or to shed commiserating tears. Thanks for today’s missive, John! I’ve felt this for some time myself. It was accelerated by the collapse of cogent, sensitive local journalism (McClatchy clap trap badly defeated KC citizens’ ability to share the soapbox). There are four local online non-profit journalistic outfits helping remediate as well as a few solo subscription journalists trying to cover statehouse beats, so a vast improvement.
But the net affect for me was to purposefully tune out the punditry and talking heads and give myself to local politics - county commission and state reps and city government and school boards. Terrific dollar value for campaign investment, plus people really working to solve problems with you. It’s been made more toxic by the DC spectacles, to be sure, but no where near as bad and people are interested in voting! I figure I can get them to more readily vote ‘up-ballot’ and finish w/ presidential voting than reminding them to vote the whole down-ballot, finishing with the judges. Sheesh!
I feel as though I am trapped in a stasis where I am perpetually shocked and never surprised. I would say that the GenXer journalists are the worst of a mediocre crop of journalists who are content to ride the crest of scandals. Again and again, they avoid the actual work of journalism, the tedium of fact-checking, the challenging work of methodically grooming sources, and simply coast by vomiting up the outrageous statements of the GOP nihilist de jour. Susanne Craig and Julie K. Brown are anomalies in the sea of mediocrity cosplaying as journalism. Were they never taught to examine the geopolitical consequences of the actions by a president or Congress? Maggie Haberman regurgitating KellyAnne Conway 'leaks', Mike Schmidt repurposing public domain information with a few anonymous tweaks into a strategically-timed book release, Peter Baker dispassionately chronicling the end of democracy unperturbed that he, too, will be forced to live in the country that failed to use his platform to warn. Do these weak, unworthy journalists believe that their failures to clearly outline the dangers of fascism will protect them from a second Trump term? Or perhaps their proximity to corruption has blurred their ability to see their own corruption of what was once a noble profession. When I want to understand what is happening in my own country, I look to foreign journalists and independent bloggers.
I think the problem is the mainstream media is an insular culture and so spends a lot of time focusing on what its members deem important. They are talking with each other and not with real people. Their insularity makes them frame everything with historical political events instead of addressing meat and potatoes issues average Americans are grappling with today.
The problem is that what happened politically in 1968 doesn't match the present environment. This is yet another way the media and so called pundits are failing us because their politicized focus keeps normalizing DJT's actions as typical political activity at the expense of bluntly calling out his criminality and treason.
I’ve been lax about writing here, either to say thank you or to shed commiserating tears. Thanks for today’s missive, John! I’ve felt this for some time myself. It was accelerated by the collapse of cogent, sensitive local journalism (McClatchy clap trap badly defeated KC citizens’ ability to share the soapbox). There are four local online non-profit journalistic outfits helping remediate as well as a few solo subscription journalists trying to cover statehouse beats, so a vast improvement.
But the net affect for me was to purposefully tune out the punditry and talking heads and give myself to local politics - county commission and state reps and city government and school boards. Terrific dollar value for campaign investment, plus people really working to solve problems with you. It’s been made more toxic by the DC spectacles, to be sure, but no where near as bad and people are interested in voting! I figure I can get them to more readily vote ‘up-ballot’ and finish w/ presidential voting than reminding them to vote the whole down-ballot, finishing with the judges. Sheesh!
I feel as though I am trapped in a stasis where I am perpetually shocked and never surprised. I would say that the GenXer journalists are the worst of a mediocre crop of journalists who are content to ride the crest of scandals. Again and again, they avoid the actual work of journalism, the tedium of fact-checking, the challenging work of methodically grooming sources, and simply coast by vomiting up the outrageous statements of the GOP nihilist de jour. Susanne Craig and Julie K. Brown are anomalies in the sea of mediocrity cosplaying as journalism. Were they never taught to examine the geopolitical consequences of the actions by a president or Congress? Maggie Haberman regurgitating KellyAnne Conway 'leaks', Mike Schmidt repurposing public domain information with a few anonymous tweaks into a strategically-timed book release, Peter Baker dispassionately chronicling the end of democracy unperturbed that he, too, will be forced to live in the country that failed to use his platform to warn. Do these weak, unworthy journalists believe that their failures to clearly outline the dangers of fascism will protect them from a second Trump term? Or perhaps their proximity to corruption has blurred their ability to see their own corruption of what was once a noble profession. When I want to understand what is happening in my own country, I look to foreign journalists and independent bloggers.
I think the problem is the mainstream media is an insular culture and so spends a lot of time focusing on what its members deem important. They are talking with each other and not with real people. Their insularity makes them frame everything with historical political events instead of addressing meat and potatoes issues average Americans are grappling with today.
The problem is that what happened politically in 1968 doesn't match the present environment. This is yet another way the media and so called pundits are failing us because their politicized focus keeps normalizing DJT's actions as typical political activity at the expense of bluntly calling out his criminality and treason.